EU farm income drops 12%

EU farm incomes tumble 12 percent in 2009

BRUSSELS, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Farmers' incomes in the European Union fell by their largest margin in a decade this year as the economic recession hit agricultural prices and production, the European Union statistics agency said on Friday.

Real agricultural income per worker in the 27-nation bloc tumbled 12.2 percent compared with a 2.5 percent decrease in the previous year, Eurostat said.

That marked the biggest decline in real terms since 2001.

"Clearly, the economic crisis has had a very serious effect on our farmers, with lower demand and relatively high production costs," EU Commissioner for Agriculture Marianne Fischer Boel said in statement.

European farmers have staged protests, strikes and supply boycotts in recent months over low prices, demanding that the European Union implement market regulations to control price volatility.

Fischer Boel said the figures pressed the case for a strong EU agricultural policy and continued direct aid to farmers.


Direct support payments from the bloc to farmers represent about a third of their income.

The estimates showed that income per worker is expected to have fallen in 22 countries and risen in five, with Hungary seeing the largest fall, down 35.6 percent. British farmers saw the biggest rise in income at 14.3 percent.

Farmers in France, Europe's biggest grain producer and largest farm aid beneficiary, saw a 19.8 percent fall in income, while those in Germany suffered a 21.0 percent decline.

European farmers group Copa-Cogeca said the main cause of the fall was lower prices paid to farmers for their produce.

Since 2003, farmers have faced a continued downward trend in prices and rising costs, pushing income in some countries to levels last seen 15 years ago, the group said in a statement.

"Farmers' income was already on average less than 50 percent of average earnings in the EU and the extreme price volatility on the markets poses a big problem for EU farmers," Copa President Padraig Walshe said, warning that the situation was unacceptable. (Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Anthony Barker)